Chapter Text
You could feel the individual beads of sweat rapidly sliding down your spine and pooling at the small of your back. Your cheeks were flushed and your hands were so clammy you had a difficult time keeping a solid grip on your iced coffee without it slipping out of your hand. As you walked down the street people gave you odd glances, some looked at you like you were crazy for walking around in a t-shirt and jeans in this weather. Others looked at you with pitiful smiles that always said “it’ll happen soon” without ever opening their mouth. November was around the corner, Halloween was only a day away and a storm was picking up. The news had said that for the next 72 hours there'd be enough rainfall to clean Gotham up once and for all, as well as a temperature increase that was set to bring a chill to one's bones. If only that was true for you.
Growing up you had heard that nearing your soulmate was like a warm summer day, the sensation of the sun on your skin that would become more intense the closer you got to your soulmate. That may be true for the people for most people, those lucky few who found each other after a week or two of being in proximity of one another; but as someone who constantly looked like they had just run a marathon, you had to call bs. It all started when you moved to Gotham. When the time came for you to pick which university you wanted to go to you decided to move as far away from home as possible. You felt cold and distant there and not just because of the distance between you and your soulmate. Thus how you ended up in Gotham.
For four years you dealt with the subtle rising temperature. When you lived on campus it felt like a breezy spring day, your soulmate was close but not overwhelmingly so. As you started living off-campus on the outskirts of the city it got worse but not unbearingly so. Then you graduated and the day you moved out of student housing and into one of the crumbling buildings in Drescher for the cheap rent you signed your death sentence. There have been times when you were walking down the street feeling like your skin was on fire only to look around and see poker faces. It was driving you insane, they were so close that the air around you felt humid in late October and yet you still hadn’t met them. You were home when Scarecrow made his announcement warning the citizens of your city to escape while they had the chance. You packed your duffle bag with a few changes of clothes, your valuables and started to head for the bus terminal but as you did a cool breeze began to pick up, you stopped on the sidewalk immediately ‘don’t tell me this ass hat is actually gonna stay in the city.’
Three hours later and several lockpicking tutorials after you stood in your neighbour's apartment triumphant. Your hair was sticking out in all directions of the bun it had been placed in, the crowsnest reflecting the anger and anxiety swimming around in your head. For so long you had accepted your sticky sweaty fate. The heat became second nature to you, an icebreaker when meeting new people, a party trick in the winter to entertain your drunk friends. You normalized it, made it a personality quirk because if you didn't you'd spend all your time thinking about them. Thinking about how the person you are destined to be with has avoided you like the plague, how they'd rather boil alive than meet you and have to let you down. When these thoughts started festering in your brain on the walk to the bus you tried to brush it off as a bought of self-doubt, a insecurity you could worry about once you had made it to safety. Then a cool breeze hit your skin and goosebumps began to cover your bear arms. For a brief moment, the eternal butterflies made of fire that had been in your stomach since you moved to Gotham stopped. You were in a losing fight with your brain, and your soulmate had dealt the final blow. You stood in the street shocked, would they really rather stay in the city that scarecrow planned to rein terror over rather than run the chance of meeting you one of the packed buses taking Gotham's citizens to safety. The shock quickly turned into sadness, which was par for the course when you thought about your soulmate, but something had snapped in you, you could only take so much passive-aggressive rejection. Anger began to warm your body, first building in the pit of your stomach and spreading to your limbs. That was when you decided that by the end of the night you'd find your soulmate, one way or another.
The inside of your neighbour's apartment was exactly what you had pictured. You recalled his love for sports, horror movies and his overall 'dudebro' attitude from some unremarkable small talk made while waiting for the elevator. The living room had jerseys on the walls, the players and the sports that they belonged to remained a mystery to you. Bobbleheads of players adorned any free space there was. Grimacing at the decorations you made your way down the hall, hoping that Steve? Stu? you knew it began with an S, hoping your neighbour did some playing instead of just watching. Lining the hall that was your path to the bedrooms were posters of B horror movies from the 50's all complete with their monster of the week and a crying buxom damsel. You think that you vaguely remember seeing a tall blonde similar to the one on the poster of 'Moth Man!' walking into your neighbour's apartment one night but with the look of the decor, you doubt she stayed the night. A small bookshelf stood at the end of the hall held about 20 funko pops of the famous movie killers as well as various pieces of their memorabilia. There was a replica ax, fangs from some iteration of Dracula, the mask of a swamp monster, and in between everything was even more bobbleheads. Anxiety began to chip away at your resolve. Maybe you had bet on the wrong horse, what if there was nothing in this apartment you could defend yourself with. A kitchen knife wouldn't cut it, it was Gotham and Halloween, you could run into anyone tonight. The thought of the scarecrow's barely together face on the news shook you out of it, there was no time to worry, you had to get this done as quickly as possible that way you'd be off of the street when chaos broke loose. You looked at the two doors in front of you, this man had made his special interests his life, surely there had to be a baseball bat or hockey stick somewhere, at least a knee pad...
All you found in the first bedroom was a signed baseball bat, a dinged-up helmet, and a stack of old trading cards, feeling the tiniest bit of guilt you shoved the baseball bat and helmet into your now empty duffel and moved on to the next room. You imagined his face as he told you the story of how looters ransacked his apartment and took his prized possessions during the evacuation, and the terrible attempt at small talk you'd make to soothe him as you waited for the elevator together. You let out a sign, made a mental note to get him a thoughtful Christmas gift, swallowed the guilt, and moved on.
As soon as you opened the door the feeling of intense confusion hit you in the face, whatever preconceived notions you had about the dudebro had been shattered. The walls of the room were a shade that could only be described as Barbie pink, wigs were intricately styled laid atop mannequin heads with blank stares on top of white shelves. The wardrobe, filled with sparkly gowns, corsets, and over-the-top boas, was too large to be contained to just the closet was also on three other clothing racks in the corner of the room. Beside them a sewing table had a piece of glittering red fabric, you wondered if he was working on whatever this garment was going to be when he heard the broadcast.
Feeling the guilt of such an invasion of privacy paired with just how little you actually paid attention to your neighbours lives you decided to move on. Now armed with a baseball bat and football helmet you took your leave and headed down the hall for the apartment of the Vietnam vet who took the second amendment a little too close to heart. Thankfully after the practice you had gotten earlier picking this lock only took you 15 minutes. While you picked his lock you gave a silent prayer that he was exactly what you had judged him as and wasn’t another closeted drag queen, you weren’t sure the thugs roaming the streets would find a cotton candy coloured wig, six-inch heels, and a baseball bat intimidating.
You let out a breath of relief when you opened the door to find a bucks head hung on the wall, its eyes bore into you and there was that guilt again. It felt far too intimate to be another person's apartment like this. Beside the buck hung a faded old lawn sign which said vote Regan on in. ‘Good to know I’m right about some things’ deciding to ignore the dead animals and the politically charged decor you set your eyes on the hunting rifle hung above the tv. Not wanting to spend more time near the judgemental dead eyes of the animals on the wall, and not seeing any other weapons in the vicinity, you reached for the gun. For how well you had him pegged you should have known that a gun-toting, 70 year old vet would have never left his home unguarded from Gotham scum. The sound of a gun caulking filled the room and all you could think was 'fuck, shit, fuck fuck FUCK.'
"You better move those fingers before you lose 'em" The southern voice rang firm and loud and for a moment you thought a cowboy had walked in off the street, Gothams latest quirky character to wreak havoc. "Now I want you to turn around nice and slow, no funny business or you'll end up like that buck over there, got me?" You nodded your head at a speed that sent your brain rattling, you slowly turned around, briefly wondering if it was better if he recognized you or not. When you completed your 180 and made eye contact there was a long pause, you bit your tongue so as not to speak, better to let the guy holding the gun do the talking. He squinted at you trying to place your face to a memory floating in his head. You remained there like that for three minutes and in those three minutes of silence, you felt your soulmate on the move, not that you could tell this man that. You had a fever instantly, your hair still messy with pieces falling began to stick to your scalp, and beads of sweat fell down your forehead. Your soulmate had to be on the street passing the apartment, if only you could get to the window but the vet sat in his wheelchair blocking your path and if he shot you then all this would have been for nothing. You'd have another shot, you were sure of it so you turned your eyes away from the window and back to the man pointing the gun at you. You hopped that the sweltering fever your soulmate had just gone through put the fear of God in them because the temperature was just going to get worse tonight; You were going to find them and they better have a damn good explanation.
"Aren't you that sweaty lady in 3B?" Your lore preceded you and you thanked the universe for it. "Yes sir that's me, very sweaty, no soulmate! I have a cat, uh I'm the one with all the plants on the fire escape, the one that you complained about..." you trailed off insecure he looked unimpressed at your recap. "It's a safety hazard" another long pause "why are you tryin' to rob me, sweaty plant lady?" A breeze began to pick up and the urgency of finding your soulmate faded away with the heat. Now you were left embarrassed, a crazy would-be girlfriend turned stalker, but there was still a gun in his hands and a question in the air. "It's kinda a long story," you say quietly, he stares at you plainly "well I ain't got all night missy, start tellin' it."
Turns out the vet, Theodore, was a romantic after all, underneath all the dead animal corpses and wrinkles that is. He met his soulmate while at war, said for the first week he was there he could barely sleep in the barracks due to the heat. He told his buddies he was just adjusting to the Vietnam weather but he knew what was really going on, and it scared the shit out of him. A month later the love of his life was blown away by the same bomb that took his right leg and sent him home. He offered you a beer or two while you both told your respective tales, to which you accepted. You really needed to start getting to know your neighbours you thought.
Once the gun was strapped to your back, with his blessing, he asked you a question that made your blood run cold. "Now I don't mean to talk negatively of your soulmate, but have you ever considered that they're one of those weirdos of the street, and that's why they stayed? To burn this city with the rest of the criminals?" the thought had crossed your mind sure, but you powered through with your naivety and hope. Having someone echo your worries made them feel too real and the apartment fell into a pregnant silence. You chewed on your lips deciding on "I sure hope not" you didn't have the mental energy to worry about all the details or the what if's? The answer didn't seem good enough to Theodore but he let it go. You wished each other a safe night and he slipped you his number on a piece of paper, "in case you get into a problem too big for just you." You thanked him with a laugh but the serious look he gave as he handed you the card sobered you up, you gave him a firm nod and headed back to your apartment.
Once home you began googling how to take the safety off a gun, after ten minutes you realized that the safety was in fact off the entire time, and then made and ate frozen pizza for dinner. Once ready you looked in the mirror, a mistake. A helmet too big for your head, bat tied to your belt, and the rifle strapped to you and held firmly in your hands. You felt a little like a kid playing war with whatever you could find around the house, and that scared the shit out of you. 'Can't get cold feet after breaking and entering twice' you thought to yourself, a poor attempt at levity but it worked and you turned away from the mirror now facing the front door. The plan was to walk around the city with a thermometer and take your temperature in every neighbourhood until you found the asshole responsible for the permanent sweat stains on your clothes. It was gonna be a long night.